My summer spent trekking across Spain, Norway, and Iceland.

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“Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost”

A dear friend of mine applied this J.R.R. Tolkien quote to me today and I was ecstatic. Not for the reason you’d expect–mostly I was just over the moon to be thought of in the same sentence as J.R.R. Tolkien. The man is a god. After sitting on it for a while though it struck me how absolutely humbling it is to be thought of like this by someone (especially someone that I admire and respect as much as Brendan). Not all those who wander are lost. I will be the first person to admit that I in no way have my shit together. I don’t know exactly where I’m going or how I’m going to get there. But that’s okay, you don’t have to. If it’s the journey that matters, not the destination, than life is this journey–but it’s not the kind you need to have mapped out beforehand. Not knowing your next move doesn’t mean that you’ve lost the game, it means that there’s still an entire universe of choices and actions open to you to choose from. The possibilities are endless.

No one will ever be able to look into the future and say with certainty “this is how my life is going to play out”. Every second of every day is a new journey. Not knowing what waits in the future doesn’t diminish the sheer beauty of the present. Not knowing whereto you wander doesn’t mean that you are lost.

One thought on ““Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost””

Aw! Well that is very nice of you to say something like this about me =) I really do think it does apply to you, in a lot of ways, but especially in this situation.

There is one more quote that comes to mind – I literally have thousands and thousands of them memorized, because I can never find the words to say anything on my own – and it is about writing a novel, but I think it is more about writing a STORY. Your story. It goes something like:

‘Writing a novel is like driving in the dark with your headlights on. You can only see a few feet in front of you, but you can make the entire journey that way.’

The idea that we can only ever see the things right in front of our faces is very humbling, and again, very relevant. Maybe you don’t have your entire life planned out. Maybe you don’t even have this whole trip planned out. But that is a-okay.